DOH! I can’t believe I’m putting this out there! What’s wrong with me?!

For my friend, K. May God be with him.

Where is the Love, The Black Eyed Peas
………………………………………………..

………………………………………………..

Sucking in Syria

Syrian protesters are dying. Everyday, it seems. Maybe, eight were killed yesterday. Four, the day before. More Syrians will die, tomorrow. Through links on Twitter, I’m getting to see some videos of the dead and dying. There’s blood. Tears. Crying. There’s the crack of AK47s.

The protesters are demanding Freedom. Change. Opportunity. Reform. They want to make a better world.

Syrians are not just dying. They are being murdered. The killing is intentional.

Protesters are being murdered by soldiers or police who have been ordered to do so by their government. They might not look like you or me. They may not even speak the same language. But, unless, you are hopelessly all wrapped up in you, you know that other people are losing the people that they love and care about. In an instant.

In a gruesome, grim, split-second instant, love seems to be cancelled.

Anguish, anger and despair burn in the hearts of those who have lost. It burns a hole now where love fueled hope, peace and kindness. Just a moment ago.

Darkness is growing in human hearts; spreading out invisible tentacles from one torn heart to another. And in that darkness, evil moves. Like the things that are glimpsed out of the corner of your eye.

Do I suck too?

Do I suck too? Let me count the ways…

While pondering this tragedy-horror-inhumanity which neither words, pictures nor vid can ever fully communicate to me or you, I am doing nothing to stop it.

You?

I’m not trying to guilt you. Or me. This is not an accusation. Neither for you nor me. But, perhaps, it should be an accusation.

How often have I proudly declared in the past that I love Freedom? That I will fight for my freedom and the freedom of those I love? That I will die for my freedom? And the freedom of those whom I love? That I will kill for it? God, please forgive me for saying THAT.

But, yeah, I’ve said it. And I meant what I said. Again, God, please, forgive me for meaning it.

Heal and take away all my stupid, Christ.

But what did I mean?

What does it mean to love Freedom?

Did I mean that I would only fight the fight only insofar as it was a direct and immediate affront to me and mine?

If so, there’s another problem for me that I can’t ignore. I understand how things work in this broken world. In fact, a threat that has become direct and immediate is nothing less than a threat that had been ignored until the 11th hour. As Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote in his Letter from Birmingham Jail:

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

So.

What can I do for the Syrian mother who lost her son today? What can I do for the Syrian father whose hopes for his son’s future are like a thousand broken glass bits strewn across a dusty street?

Where is my love?

Am I My Brother’s Keeper?

Contrary to Malcolm Gladwell’s heart-less, hasty and Cain-ish opinion about the role of social in making the world a better place, I can do things for them. And “Gladwell” will become a synonym for “obtuse”.

Why are you so Gladwell? It just works, doesn’t it? <grin>

I defy you, Malcolm Gladwell. And a million others defy you!

Nor must I resort to violence. In my heart. Or on the street. For Love does not fail- even when so much has been lost.

My tears can join their tears. Our tears can grow together to become a sea that can swallow up crocodiles. Whole. My voice can join their voices. Together, global voices can drown out the barking orders of tyrants to their misguided soldiers and police. My prayers can join their prayers to unlock miracles – panting hard at the gates of heaven. Waiting to come down!

Mr. Faryna is the founder and co-founder of several technology, design and communication companies in the United States and Europe including Faryna & Associates, Inc., Halo Interactive, and others.

Stan Faryna served as a Global Voices author and translator. Global Voices is a non-profit global citizens’ media project founded at Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, a research think-tank focused on the Internet’s impact on society.

Mr. Faryna also served as editor-in-chief of Black and Right (Praeger Press, 1996), a landmark collection of socio-political essays by important American thinkers including U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

Copyright

Copyright 1996 to 2012 by Stan Faryna.

Here’s my fair use policy for my content:

If you want to share my content with your own audience, you may quote a brief excerpt, if and only if, you provide proper attribution (Source: The unofficial blog of Stan Faryna) with a direct link to the source. Generally speaking, as long as you are not acting as an agent or on behalf of a corporation or institution, I am not interested in any payment for the quotation or use of a complete article. Nevertheless, you may not republish or translate the entire article without my written permission. Send your request for permission via Facebook. Or tweet me up me on Twitter.

Post navigation

4 Responses to DOH! I can’t believe I’m putting this out there! What’s wrong with me?!

The information is out there, but it’s difficult to track down the original sources. One man that is doing a lot of important work, that you may know of, is Andy Carvin ( Twitter link ). He is hunting down the primary sources and tweeting about everything. I’m not positive whether he is tracking Syria, but he has been covering everything else, from Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Ivory Coast, and so forth.

I am hopeful that all of the uprisings and protests sweeping Africa and the Arab world will carry over a bit to the Americas and Europe. It would be nice to see some government in power that look out for the people’s interests instead of the corporate demands. But I have the feeling that the corporations are already moving into these troubled areas and are beginning to plan on capitalizing them.

Political leaders, everywhere, face restless and dangerous seas ahead. Too often, politicians confused expedience with justice. And the unfortunate consequences only become more grim and much more problematic.

Political leaders, everywhere, are sailing ships of state into fury-driven seas. On the highway to hell, some would say.

Things have to get a lot more worse for people in the West to be moved to action, protest, and change. But it is coming. Soon.

Luckily for me, I’m not in Syria or I would be dead. I had a very generous offer to do a six-month consulting gig there – plan and execute a massive online strategy. But it fell through at the last minute and I got to keep the initial retainer too.